Different Parts of Speech (Proper and Common Nouns)

A noun is a person, place or thing. Nouns can be proper or common.

Proper nouns specifically name a person, place or thing. For example: Peter (person), England (place), and Big Ben (thing). Proper nouns are capitalized. 

Common nouns do not specifically name a person, place or thing, but in general. For example: uncle (person), country (place), and clock (thing). Usually common nouns are not capitalized, but there are exceptions. One of those exceptions would be if a common noun is used at the beginning, for example: Bags are used to carry things in.

Here are some examples using proper nouns (London, Big Ben, and Peter):

• My favourite place is London.

• They took a photograph of Big Ben.

• He plays football with Peter every week.

Here are some examples using common nouns (city, clock, and uncle):

• My favourite place is in the city.

• They took a photograph of a clock.

• He plays football with his uncle every week.

Different Parts of Speech (Articles and Nouns)

There are different parts of speech in the English language: article, noun, adjective, pronoun, verb, participle, adverb, conjunction, preposition and interjection.

Let us begin with the first two in the list, the article and the noun. An article is placed before a noun. The articles are a, an and the - a and an are called indefinite articles (general) and the is called the definite article (specific).

A noun is a person, place or thing, for example: man (person), library (place), lion (thing),  and car (thing).

Here is an example using the definite and indefinite articles with a noun:

Have you got the pen? (referring to a specific pen)

Have you got a pen? (not referring to a specific pen)

There are 2 ways to write the indefinite article, a and an. Usually a is used when the noun begins with a consonant, for example, a ball, and an is used when the noun begins with a vowel (a,e,i,o,u), for example, an apple, but there are exceptions. One exception is the word 'university', which starts with a vowel, but uses a (a university) and not an, because the word 'university' has a consonant sound.